Friday, March 15, 2019

Nosh 145: 'Captain Marvel,' 'Apollo 11' & More

David Elliott

Flix Nosh is a personal movie menu, new
each Friday.

Note: Nosh 146 will appear on Friday, March 29.

APPETIZER (Reviews: Captain
Marvel and Apollo 11)

Captain Marvel

Every star
career, from Brando to Danny Trejo, is about luck and talent, options and
choices, zig and zag. For Brie Larson, formerly Brianne Sidonie
Desaulniers (French-Canadian parentage) that means: novice recognition in a
comic skit on Jay Leno’s show, then theater, more TV, acclaimed work for indy
movies (Short Term 12, The Glass Castle,
Room – the last earned her an Oscar). Larson is a committed feminist and
activist, but even young, sexy, Oscarized stardom’s gotta eat, so on to: Kong: Skull Island. And now, at 29, the giddy
embrace of what Comic-Con fans call the MCU, the Marvel Cinematic Universe (what
we yawny retros call Marvel Comics).

Larson’s Captain
Marvel is a lab sample of pure MCU. Late Marvel founder Stan Lee beams in the
opening logo, and has a cameo inside the story. By not buying the film’s Entertainment Weekly “collectors issue,”
I denied myself deep research, but a ticket will do just fine. Here is the gaga
saga of buff but peachy Carol (Brie Larson), who star-gazed right into America’s
advanced stealth-plane program as a “girl” pilot. Alas, Carol crashed but was (shazaam!) Marvel-ized to the planet of
the Kree, haughty empire builders fighting lizard-skinned and bat-eared enemies.
Now called Vers, and given voltage-blast hands, she joins Kree commandos led by
Jude Law (very game but possibly hankering to be back in the smarter sci-fi dream
of Gattaca, or the more pictorially exciting
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow).

Carol’s past Earth aviation mentor Wendy is also the Supreme
Intelligence of the Kree, which makes sense only because she is Annette Bening.
Also named Mar-Vell (clever!), Bening appears to have been digitally “youthed”
(expect more of that magic with the aging stars of Scorsese’s The Irishman). Her “How’s my hair?” after
crashing seems like a tart dart at Larson’s lustrous, evolving hair. Ben Mendelsohn
is a mighty hard case, un-Earthly but sporting Ben’s rock-dude Aussie growl. Reliably
the king dude is Samuel L. Jackson as Earth cop Nick Fury, whom Jackson played
in past movies and a TV series. Nick bonds with Carol/Vers, but more happily with
a tabby cat, while swinging his Jackson 5 voice (that is, five times hipper
than anyone else). Wolfing down a fat sandwich, he gurgles “Mmmm, we goin’
t’space?”

After whopper blasts and Marvel mutations, it feels
good to get back to the home planet, circa 1995 (typically, Marvel chose to
symbolizethe decade with a Blockbuster
video store). Earth is called “a real shithole,” a writers’s giggle poking Trump’s
infamous “shithole countries” remark. There is some humor, also vivid zips from
Larson and Jackson (no one is quite bad here, just decal shallow). In essence,
the Cinematic remains Comics. Every plot advance heads generically to super-powers
violence. Every “mythic” hook draws on past movies, TV or comics, while seeding
its own sequel. We want better: Rise of
the Ruths: A Gender Odyssey, starring RBG (Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 85) and DRW
(Dr. Ruth Westheimer, 90). Premiering on Venus, 2022.

Apollo 11

Captain
Marvel is a gaudy space donut next to
the reality feastof Apollo 11. The real deal about the Right Stuff, Todd Douglas
Miller’s documentary has big-screen power (frame ratio 2:1, first shot 65 mm.
for an abandoned NASA film). The subject may be the most daringly successful science
experiment ever. From July 1969: the massive preparation; the fiery
launch of Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins; on site-viewers
(mostly regular folk but also ex-President Lyndon Johnson and actor Hugh
O’Brian); the near-glitches (a broken warning light, a leaky valve); Walter
Cronkite intoning about “the burden and the hopes they carry for all
mankind”; the huge tech team at Apollo Mission Control in Houston (almost all
male, heavy on crewcuts, white shirts and Slim Jim ties); the Earth orbit like
a sling-shot for the 240,500 mile trip to the moon, then back; our planet a diminishing
blue oasis, while the glowing target rises as never before; the laid-back
astronaut talk (“Hey there, sports fans”); the huge suspense of the little
landing craft peeling off to put Armstrong and Aldrin on the surface (Neil’s
flat eloquence: “one small step for man …,” Buzz’s plain awe: “magnificent
desolation”); the planting of Old Glory (the U.N. flag was vetoed); and the
stunning return, with a fiery re-entry at seven miles a second. All like
clockwork, raised to a higher human power of courage and expertise. President
Nixon’s speech was not bad, for the Dickster, but no rival to (also seen) JFK’s
speech launching the dream. The film is a complete, beautiful experience. We no
long make such history, but the infinitude beckons.

Orson
Welles didn’t have much use for sci-fi after his fabled War of the Worlds gig on radio. Peter Bogdanovich once asked, “Did
you like 2001?” OW: “Bet I’ll love
it.” PB: “You’ll never see it.” OW:
“I will, too –when and if a shorter version is released. I won’t see anything
that keeps me in a theater seat for more than two hours.” Somehow I doubt that
he saw it, or if he did, much loved it. (Quotes from the compelling interview
book This is Orson Welles.)

ENTRÉE (Starlight Rising)

“Sam
Peckinpah relished Mexico in the studio-broken Major Dundee, even better in his masterwork The Wild Bunch. He was a full-blown alcoholic and his affair with
Mexico ‘went south’ in Bring Me the Head
of Alfredo Garcia, a deadly corrida for his dreams of Mexico and lost women
and booze-bonded friendship and filming as a manly crusade. (Critic) David
Thomson lamented that ‘the style turns to vinegar the way it can in wine,’ but Alfredo is more tequila de sangre than vinegar.” (From the Bogart/Treasure of the Sierra Madre chapter of my
book Starlight Rising, available via
Amazon, Nook and Kindle.)

DESSERT (An Image)

A fine movie image is more than a still,
it’s a distillation.

Robbie
the Robot, seen here with Walter Pidgeon, became the surprise star of the
sci-fi hit Forbidden Planet (MGM
1956; directorFred M. Wilcox).

David Elliott's book

About Me

David Elliott was film critic of the Chicago Daily News, USA Today, San Diego Union-Tribune, SDNN.com, The Reader (San Diego), and covered arts and entertainment for the Chicago Sun-Times. Retired but not hibernating, he lives in green Eugene, Oregon. (Photo by Travis Elliott.)